Wear your heart on your sleeve!
If you’re like me, you wear your heart on your sleeve. And now, given how I live my life, it is the first time in my 37 years that it feels darn good to do so.
But this wasn’t always pleasant for me. I assumed people around me were like me and I could trust that we all wanted to get along. Turns out “that was a lie”. A lie I spent my whole life seeking to make sense of and find a way to live up to. (But the thing with something that doesn’t exist is that you can never measure up…)
Today it feels good because after layers and layers of integration of what I'm calling "good girl conditioning" (cultural programming of that teaches us to prioritize everyone BUT ourselves, to the point of depletion), I finally have made peace with the fact that boundaries are an essential to the quality of my life.
I didn't always know this to be true.
In fact, I have spent most of last year deciphering what it means to be a boundaried being. I have created two yearlong experiences with the intention to reclaim the power of the Crone (who is both unapologetic and unfuckwithable precisely because authenticity is her boundary).
Are boundaries dangerous?
Cultural norms teach us program us to fear and shun the Crone (aka authenticity) while valuing the pretenses of the "good girl" (aka playing nice, pretending, appeasing, inauthenticity).
Well, if you've bought into the lie cultural norms like me and the women I work with, you probably believe, somewhere deep within, that boundaries are dangerous.
Let's test your beliefs out, shall we? Permission to be real, granted -- no one is watching.
Boundaried women are...
[Check all that apply]
☐ aggressive
☐ annoying
☐ un-feminine-like
☐ difficult
☐ unlikable
☐ pushy
☐ insensitive
☐ inconsiderate
☐ bitchy
📧 Alright, tally that up.
What came up for you? Any other words I didn't mention?
The truth is, women are taught to value taking care of relationships by sacrificing themselves for the greater good.
Yet the more we sacrifice, the lower the rewards.
So we tell ourselves stories that we need to try harder.
The harder we try, the worse things get. And on and on it goes ... 🔁🔁🔁🔁🔁
Forever & intergenerationally, if we let it.
The undeniable consequences of this intergenerational cycle of pretend? Women boiling with resentment, regret and despair. Yikes!
On one hand, fear of boundaries is installed and sustained throughout cultural narratives and on the other hand self-sacrifice is sold as noble. Double bind, anyone?!
When trust is violated …
The issue that most of us want to avoid forever is that trust has been violated. And no matter how hard you try, you will never not feel what your body knows is real.
When trust is violated, women are taught to believe that we are responsible to find another way. Make "it" work AT ALL PERSONAL COSTS.
That's what a good fill-in-the-blank would do.
And if you don't, YOU are a failure. YOU didn't work hard enough to, say, "keep your family together".
My heart beats fast as I type that because I have lived so much of my life with the internal pressure that this kind of mindset installs. I have endured violence of all sorts just to pretend my family was in-tact, that the people I cared about deeply cared as much about me.
Turns out, they didn't.
What sustained "the relationship" was my willingness to sacrifice my truth for the illusion. To pretend that they cared as much as I did when my body knew differently. That's how I discovered the power and utmost significance of allyship.
Truth is, the pain of admitting that was huge. I had to really keep reminding myself that I see what I see and I know what I know, otherwise I'd get into the whole narrative of they didn't mean it or they wouldn't do that to me. When they just did! #gaslightingmyself
Once I let the waves of information flow through my body, as I know how to do well, the reward of internal freedom was unmatched.
Yet most women fear the freedom and embrace the illusion. To be liked. To be accepted. To be part of. To belong.
Crazy. Making. Stuff.
The thing that most of don't ever want to face ...
The thing that we think hurts the most ...
The thing that we turn ourselves inside our to avoid ...
... is that trust, from the people we love most, has been violated.
When trust has been violated, you can not pretend it hasn't without consequences to your own well-being. To your body. To your state of mind. To your joy!
When trust has been violated, you cannot do the heavy lifting alone no matter how hard you try.
The responsibility to heal into wholeness belongs to everyone involved. In other wants, the other party involved has to want to. And choose to. It takes two to tango.
Otherwise you are merely left dragging an unwilling, heavy weight around wondering how come the dance isn't as elegant as it's supposed to be...
Perhaps, today is a good day to delve into this book: When the Horse Dies, GET OFF and Stop Dragging it Around!
What are the dead horses you continue to drag around?
You don't have to know the answers, but are you willing to notice that there are some? If so, that's a good place to be ...
The boundary I have come to value the most in my life is this: I am unwilling to pretend. And the quality of my life is my reward.
Perhaps it's time for you to awaken. Because no matter how long you carry the heavy weight around, it will still be dead.
Rip the band-aid off and live your life!!!
The Boundaries Bootcamp
Build a Stronger Self
A complimentary online five day challenge intended to evolve your thinking about good-girl programming as we explore what it might be like for you to explore the power of authenticity as boundary.
